WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - The FBI on Thursday arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard, over the leaks online of classified documents that embarrassed Washington with allies around the world.
Federal agents in an armored car and military gear swooped in on Teixeira, dressed in gym shorts, a T-shirt and trainers, at his home in Dighton, Massachusetts, a mostly wooded town of 8,000 about 50 miles (80 km) south of Boston....
Teixeira was an airman 1st class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, according to his service record. He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and worked as a "Cyber Transport Systems Journeyman," or an IT specialist.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Teixeira was wanted "in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information."
Okay, he's an IT specialist. Are secret documents that poorly protected? I am not casting doubt on whether they really have identified the culprit, just wondering how much access an Air National Guardsman has to such sensitive information.
1. Something smells. The pieces just don't seem to fall into place.
ReplyDelete2. I'm still confused on who did what. Did he actually access the original files and distribute them, or was he the recipient of the files from someone else and then distributed them? I've read what seem to be conflicting reports, enough to wonder why he's the only one in the paddy wagon.
I've read a few different things about this. First, as an IT specialist, he needs to have security clearance to be able to work on computers which may have secrets, or even just methods to protect secrets. But he should not have had access to those secrets in general, and if he saw them on the course of working on people's computers, he shouldn't have saved the documents..
ReplyDeleteBut - I've seen an allegation that this information was deliberately fed to this guy with the intent that it be leaked. Someone in the government wants various foreign actors to think that the US is thinking or considering certain things. This may be a deliberate policy decision, or it may be part of internal squabbles over policy within the administration.